File photo: Servicemen of the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine fire a howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, 5 April 2024;
Credit: Reuters/Sofiia Gatilova/File Photo
(Reuters) - The Biden administration will lift its ban on allowing a controversial Ukrainian military unit to use US weapons, the Washington Post reported on Monday 10 June 2024, citing State Department officials.
The State Department reversed a decade-old prohibition on the Azov Brigade from using American training and weapons after a new analysis found no evidence of human rights violations by the unit, the Post reported.
"After thorough review, Ukraine’s 12th Special Forces Azov Brigade passed Leahy vetting as carried out by the US Department of State,” the State Department said in a statement obtained by the newspaper. The State Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Reuters.
The Leahy Law bars US military assistance to foreign units found to have committed such violations.
The Azov Regiment, which has far-right and ultra-nationalist roots, is part of Ukraine's National Guard and evolved out of a battalion that was formed in 2014 and fought against Russian-backed separatists who carved out breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.
The regiment is lionised in Ukraine for defending the country against Russia's invasion and in particular the southern city of Mariupol, but they are reviled by Russian President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin.
